In an earlier post I had mentioned and linked to Daniel Benmergui’s html “game” that demonstrates the basic workings of the Storyteller in development.
In this presentation he explains in the beginning that Storyteller is to actually be considered a puzzle game in which the player attempts to make the story with the given pieces. In each session, there are a series of panels empty, meaning that they are without the characters, their motives, and elements that change the character’s motives (romance, depression, etc). Depending on how you place the elements given in the panels, the game will attempt to make sense and find the most dramatic interpretation of things and then the resulting story is created.
An interesting aspect of Storyteller he explains is why it is not created to be real time and why sound was not included. He speaks of the cons of having something more frame-based and thus have a less amount of dramatic-ness versus a real-time game, and how sound would not fit in because dramatic scores that were created fit for tragedies (as it was apparently the most common event); later on in the presentation Daniel makes a good point saying that many players are not inclined to give the in-game characters empathy and instead finding humor in the various ways the characters react. He clarifies that Storyteller will not become a universal comic tool either.
Recently my friend and I have been learning about the presentation of games and how they are received, and I definitely commend the work Benmergui is putting into Storyteller to dish out what he has envisioned.
